This story is a reporting partnership between Mongabay Latam and La Barra Espaciadora. Balsa wood is a hot commodity in Ecuador, with the country exporting $402 million worth of the timber in…
“They may kill one, two, three of us, but others will come to defend the forest, they will not exterminate us,” says Marisol García Apagüeño, an Indigenous Kichwa leader from…
In September 2015, officials from the agriculture agency of Peru’s Ucayali department arrived in the district of Masisea with one goal: to create a rural land registry in a forested…
Indigenous people in Brazil are bracing for a surge in invasions and violence on their territories after a controversial bill that could make land grabs easier cleared a key legislative…
This article is a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay’s Latin America (Latam) team and Colombian digital news website Rutas del Conflicto. Ana Villa has traveled dozens of times on the highways…
This report is a partnership between Mongabay Latam, Rutas del Conflicto and La Liga Contra el Silencio. In Colombia’s Meta department, a stretch of several miles of reddish, arable land…
Technology isn’t always a practical solution for Indigenous communities fighting for their land rights. Some technology requires internet access, which often isn’t available in remote areas. And some technology can…
Almost two decades ago, Myanmar’s largest coal-fired power plant was built as a joint venture by a group of military-affiliated businessmen and the China National Heavy Machinery Corporation. Since then,…
PANDUMAAN-SIPITUHUTA, Indonesia — For years, Ganjang, a member of the Pandumaan-Sipituhuta Indigenous community in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, has been uneasy about extracting frankincense from trees in a nearby forest.…
The European Union has imposed new sanctions on a state-owned timber enterprise in Myanmar following the coup in February, as part of an international effort targeting businesses whose profits are…
Mongabay Latam and Folha, through the Stories Without Borders project, document what is happening on the border between Peru and Brazil. MÂNCIO LIMA, Acre — The Acre antshrike is known…
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The thick plumes of smoke stretched for miles across this slice of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, blanketing the dense rainforest surrounding it. Soon, they drifted…
As recently as 1980, hunters in the forests of the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea could count on bagging at least a couple of tree kangaroos in a…
Gold mining activities in a region of the Brazilian Amazon ravaged by illegal operations could be suspended after prosecutors filed a lawsuit this week. In its lawsuit, the Federal Public…
JAKARTA — Palm oil giant Korindo Group has had its membership in the Forest Stewardship Council terminated, a move that activists say sends a signal to other companies that they…
A recent spate of violence related to land conflicts in northeastern Brazil has targeted Indigenous people and small-scale farmers, raising concerns from activists about impunity in the region. On July…
Deep-rooted mistrust in the Malaysian federal and state governments is preventing many Indigenous Penan people from accepting the COVID-19 vaccine. While there have been reports of some individuals traveling up…
Demand for manganese in China is having a huge impact on the other side of the world: for the Indigenous Kayapó people in the Brazilian Amazon. The metal is essential…
JAKARTA — Human rights abuses continue to fester in the Indonesian palm oil industry as global brands and financial institutions and investors turn a blind eye to the problem, a…
Teaching Indigenous communities in the Amazon to tap on remote-monitoring technologies during forest patrols can reduce illegal deforestation, a new study has found. Researchers, whose work was published July 12…
BOGOTÁ — The year 2021 marks 30 years since Colombia adopted its current Constitution. Considered the Magna Carta of the laws of the nation, it was established in 1991 by…
A hundred and ninety-six trees per minute. That’s how fast the forest was being cleared in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin between March and April this year. A total of 29,191…
RIO DE JANEIRO — When the Portuguese fleet led by Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil in 1500, Pero Vaz de Caminha, a knight serving as the secretary to the…
RIO DE JANEIRO — Maracanã, Ipanema, the Lapa Arches, the Church of Our Lady of Glory of Outeiro … Millions of the visitors who flock to Brazil’s most famous city…
BOA VISTA, Brazil — When she was 24, Ariene dos Santos Lima adopted the Indigenous name Susui. In her ancestral Wapichana language, it means “flower” — the ornament that Ariene…
The renowned photographer endured the Nazi occupation. Settling in Brazil, she fought for the founding of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, long under attack by illegal miners. A new photo exhibition celebrates her life and the Yanomami people.
It was not easy for Munduruku Indigenous leaders to leave their reserve in Jacareacanga, in northern Pará state, and get to Brazil's federal capital, Brasília, to join a huge protest…
Indigenous people living near the Teles Pires and São Manoel dams in the Brazilian Amazon say the projects have polluted their river, causing health problems and wrecking the fishery. COVID-19 made things worse.
In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, a municipality in northern Amazonas state, the traditions and culture of 32 ethnic groups are the hallmarks of a daily life rich in diversity. But even here, traditional peoples face discrimination.
As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fighting off attacks and threats by…
